ACL compiles a daily media monitoring service of stories of interest to the Christian constituency relating to children, family, drugs and alcohol, marriage, human rights, religious freedom etc. Visit the ACL’s website each day to see what’s of interest in the news. Please note that selection of the articles does not represent ACL endorsement of the content.

The Saint Vincent de Paul Society is cutting its paid staff in South Australia. The not-for profit charity organisation will lose 20 full-time-equivalent positions through redundancies. It currently has 90 full- and part-time staff and 2,500 volunteers. The charity's president, Dominic Lagana, said times were tough for the organisation.

The sight of a man straddling a naked woman from behind while giving her a massage has been okayed for Australian television. The Durex lube advert had been the subject of several compaints to the Advertising Standards Bureau, all of which have been dismissed. The ASB ruled that the advert treated sex "with sensitivity to the relevant audience", and that the content was only mildly sexually suggestive.

The Tasmanian Government is considering ruling out banning tobacco sales to people born after 2000, in the wake of a vote in the state's Upper House last night. Legislative Council member Ivan Dean wants to make it illegal for people born after 2000 to buy tobacco once they turn 18 - meaning they would never legally be able to buy cigarettes.

A British man who suffered from locked-in syndrome has died days after losing a legal bid to end his life. Tony Nicklinson, 58, was left paralysed by a catastrophic stroke while on a business trip to Athens in 2005. On August 16, he lost a court bid to end his life after High Court judges unanimously agreed that it would be wrong to depart from a precedent that equates voluntary euthanasia with murder.

Palliative care services in Queensland will get 13 per cent funding boost in next month's state budget. The government's razor gangs are working overtime to save $4 billion over three years. But Health Minister Lawrence Springborg has told a parliamentary committee the sector will be immune from cuts, and funding will be boosted by 12.9 per cent.

The day after North Carolina voters passed a constitutional amendment to define marriage as between one man and one woman, and ban any other types of domestic unions that are typically used to circumvent traditional marriage, President Obama articulated his position on national television.

In Australia, at least, marriage remains overwhelmingly popular. A new RSVP survey showed that 67 per cent of Gen Y singles are keen to marry. Seventy-one per cent of that age group's women would like to spend the rest of their lives with the one. Reach a certain age, somewhere around our mid- to late- twenties, and we are all likely to know more couples than singles.

Marriage may reduce health risks in women, new research finds, but men who get married too early may find their likelihood of chronic inflammation going up. The study, presented Aug. 18 at the annual meeting of the American Sociological Association, is preliminary, but gives researchers an in-depth view of the relationship between marriage and health, study researcher Michael McFarland, a Princeton University sociologist, told LiveScience. The study finds that for women, continuous marriage without divorce or widowhood is linked to fewer cardiovascular risk factors, such as high blood pressure.

A second marriage can be a costly affair, but Steven Roks' return to the registry has cost him another $2500 almost a year after his wedding. Roks, 44, today pleaded guilty to a charge of bigamy after it was revealed he was not divorced from his first wife when he was married last September. Prosecutor Simon Zebrowski said Roks married his first wife Michelle in October, 2001, at a church in East Brunswick.

The Australian Christian Lobby is calling on Prime Minister Julia Gillard to honour her election promise to protect marriage against attempts by Territories to mimic it. ACL Managing Director Jim Wallace said today's move by the ACT Labor-Green coalition to pass marriage-mimicking civil union legislation should be overturned by the Federal Parliament. Two weeks before the 2010 election, Ms Gillard recorded a video interview with ACL.

Victoria is emerging as the bright hope for the Greens, raising twice as much money and recruiting four times as many members than the bitterly divided NSW party. A confidential report of the party's fundraising working group for the past financial year obtained by The Australian shows the Victorian division leading the nation in revenue-raising and recruitment.

Christian Copts in Upper Egypt are under attack, hours after a call for their eradication appeared in the form of leaflets calling on Muslims to kill Copts, specifically naming regions of Upper Egypt. A report by Fady Talaat, for Al Akhbar News, published August 14, has the details. In Al Gallaweya Village, Sohag, Upper Egypt, Christians are being beaten, their stores destroyed, and their properties plundered. The attackers are declaring that “any Christian who dares to leave his house will be killed”; and the Copts are complaining that the police only arrive after the damage has been completely done.

The man who led the three-year Fair Work investigation into former Labor MP Craig Thomson has defended his handling of the case. Mr Thomson, who now sits as an independent, says an independent review of Fair Work's report proves allegations he paid prostitutes with union money are false.

Federal Attorney-General Nicola Roxon did sensitive legal work as a solicitor for the Australian Workers Union during a formal probe that followed a criminal investigation and the acrimonious departure of Julia Gillard from Slater & Gordon. However, while Ms Roxon criticised reporting of the Prime Minister's conduct on Tuesday, and claimed that there were Liberal Party connections behind the reports, she failed to reveal her own work on AWU matters.

In the days following Tony Abbott's election as Leader of the Opposition he received a barrage of calls from ex-staffers all desperate to work for him again. Most were women. There were two reasons for this. He has a solid record of employing women in prominent positions and his leadership style is based on respect and equality.